President-elect Donald Trump walked out to a roaring standing ovation just ahead of the start of the UFC pay-per-view card at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, combining two things close to his heart: fierce battles inside the octagon and New York City.
Trump was accompanied by UFC President Dana White and the pair headed to their cageside seats to Kid Rock's “American Bad Ass."
UFC aired a video package of Trump's road to reclaiming the White House, calling it, “The great comeback in American History," while fans stood and applauded. Trump, wearing a suit and red tie, pumped his fist toward the crowd when the video ended.
The president-elect also had his clenched fists pumping back and forth and briefly danced to the Village People’s “YMCA” just outside the cage. He later again thrust his fist skyward as “Takin’ Care of Business” played.
Elon Musk, picked by Trump to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined the president-elect and White at the Garden, as did Robert Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in his incoming administration.
Trump was flanked on his front-row seat by White on his right and Musk on his left and politely applauded the fight winners. Besieged by photographers and nearby fans, Trump stood to pose for pictures with White, Musk and other associates in breaks between fights. Trump even had a brief conversation with country singer Jelly Roll after the pair shook hands.
UFC fans wore red Trump hats and some waved flags emblazoned with his image during breaks in the action.
Trump shook hands with the UFC broadcast team that included Joe Rogan. Rogan hosted Trump on his podcast for hours in the final stages of the campaign ahead of his election win last week. The announcers for the pay-per-view audience later declared, “Festive doesn’t even begin to describe” the scene before later proclaiming, “47’s in the building. Let’s go.”
The MSG crowd chanted “USA! USA!” right before the main card was about to start and then again throughout the action. After a year delay, Stipe Miocic is getting his shot at a third heavyweight championship reign when he battles current champion Jon Jones in the main event at UFC 309.
Trump is a longtime UFC enthusiast and frequent attendee of major fights. He made promoting hypermasculine tones a signature of his campaign — as he looked to further widen the gap among male voters between himself and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump and his top supporters embraced alpha-male terms and often accentuated them with vulgar and demeaning language.
While campaigning, Trump appeared frequently on podcasts, gaming platforms, and with key supporters who described a vote for Trump as a way to demonstrate true manliness. While Trump taped a podcast with Rogan, who himself has spoken about hypermasculinity, Harris failed to do a similar appearance, citing scheduling conflicts.
A return to Madison Square Garden means revisiting the place where a comedian caused an uproar at a Trump rally last month by likening Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage.” Yet Trump continues to relish visits to New York, where he lived for decades, before moving to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump's son, Don Jr., also attended the fight.
Except for a day trip to Washington this week to meet for nearly two hours with President Joe Biden, and separately address House Republicans, Trump has been spending his time since his Election Day victory at Mar-a-Lago. The club has hosted galas and conservative events throughout the week.
Trump has been close to White for more than two decades.
White hosted a 2001 UFC battle at Trump Taj Mahal, a former casino-hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Trump has frequently attended UFC matches since – including during his 2024 campaign. Trump has turned up at fights recently with famous entourages, including White, musician Kid Rock and former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson.
In 2018, during Trump's first term, he and White starred in a UFC video where the then-president was called the “Combatant In Chief.”
As Trump has strengthened his grip on the national Republican Party over the last near-decade, White’s personal political profile has grown exponentially. White spoke at the 2016 and 2020 Republican conventions, and when the party gathered in Milwaukee this past July. He also addressed the crowd at Trump’s Florida victory party in the wee hours of the morning after Election Day.
“This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White said then. “What you’ve seen over the last several years, this is what it looks like: couldn’t stop him. He keeps going forward. He doesn’t quit.”mate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” Wright, who has never served in government, has written that more fossil fuel production is needed around the globe to lift people out of poverty.
Consideration of Wright to head the administration's energy department won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm.
Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. Hamm helped organize an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Trump would curtail environmental regulations if reelected.
Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's top lobbying group, said Wright’s experience in the energy sector “gives him an important perspective that will inform his leadership" of the Energy Department.
“We look forward to working with him once confirmed to bolster American geopolitical strength by lifting DOE’s pause on LNG export permits and ensuring the open access of American energy for our allies around the world," Sommers said.
Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, called Wright “a champion of dirty fossil fuels" and said his nomination to lead the Energy Department was “a disastrous mistake.”
“The Energy Department should be doing all it can to develop and expand the energy sources of the 21st century, not trying to promote the dirty fuels of the last century," Wong said. “Given the devastating impacts of climate-fueled disasters, DOE’s core mission of researching and promoting cleaner energy solutions is more important now than ever."
The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. The agency is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons, oversees 17 national research laboratories and approves natural gas exports, as well as ensuring environmental cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. It also promotes scientific and technological research.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is expected to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Trump promised bold choices for his Cabinet, and Wright’s nomination delivers.
“He’s s an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America’s fracking boom. After four years of America last energy policy, our country is desperate for a secretary who understands how important American energy is to our economy and our national security,″ Barrasso said.
If confirmed, Wright will join North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump's choice to be interior secretary, as a key player on energy policy in a second Trump term. Wright will be a member of a new National Energy Council that Burgum will chair. The new panel will seek to establish U.S. “energy dominance” around the world, Trump said.
Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a conservative group that supports fossil fuels, said Wright would be “an excellent choice” for energy secretary. Pyle led Trump’s Energy Department’s transition team in 2016.
Liberty is a major energy industry service provider, with a focus on technology. Wright, who grew up in Colorado, earned undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.